Performance, was RE: [CF-Devel] Future of Crossfire

[Bob Tanner]

Quoting Mark Wedel (
     
     mwedel at scruznet.com
     
     ):
>
     
      On Thu, 17 May 2001, Yann Chachkoff wrote:
     
     >
     
      > Agree. Idea: the client connects to the server, _may_ (not _must_) request a
     
     >
     
      > list of pictures available with last update dates; if the client pictures
     
     <snip>

>
     
       The idea of separating the picture server from the crossfire server has been
     
     >
     
      discussed before.  These are the problems:
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      1) Reliability - if picture server is down and you need an image, your hosed.
     
     
Easily solved. Simpliest solution is have the picture servers in a round-robin
DNS setup. Just need to make sure the client, timesout quickly and tries the
next IP.

A more complex setting, but vastly more reliable, would be using Linux Virtual
Server (LVS) (
     
     http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/
     
     ) with multiple directors using
Virtual Servers via IP Tunneling (VS-TUN).

>
     
      2) Simplicity - setting up a new crossfire server now requires the potential
     
     >
     
         that you add new images to the picture server.  This now requires
     
     >
     
         authentication of some sort.
     
     
Maybe use a DNS analogy here. Couldn't the client look in its local cache for
the image. If not, ask the server it's connected to, if not forward the request
the picture server?

-- 
Bob Tanner <
     
     tanner at real-time.com
     
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